guest post | lucy's serious about baking

a few weeks back i was invited to a baking masterclass with chef eric lanlard over at cake boy in battersea. laura and were keen to get over there - both being mad for cake (her, making it and me, eating it), but unfortunately something more awesome came up at the last minute and i wasn't able to make the event. not being one to let the team down, i sent young lucy off with laura to the event in my place, and insisted she share her experience here with you instead. lucy's no blogger, but she sure loves cake... take it away lucy!

Hi! I guess you know by now that I'm Lucy. Firstly I’d like to say a big thank you to Erica for letting me guest post here – I hope I can blog up to her usual fantastic standard! So, as she said, I was lucky enough to head along in Erica's place last Tuesday at the immaculately decorated Cake Boy at Battersea Reach. Upon arrival, Laura and I were greeted at the door by with finger sandwiches and champagne – don’t mind if I do..!

Having got chatting to a few of my fellow cake bloggers – all as excited as me to begin the cakey activities – soon we were asked to take our seats so cake extraordinnaire Eric Lanlard could begin his demonstrations. He kicked off his masterclass with a red velvet cheesecake (the name alone exciting my impatient taste buds)... 

(ermergerd, nom... erica)

Aren’t we well behaved, all sitting quietly (this didn't last long).

Top tip alert: For the perfect piping bag, don’t fill with too much icing and snip about half an inch off the end! I honestly can’t put into words how amazing this cake tasted, so I’ll let Chef Eric’s animated face describe just how great that cake actually was:

(By the way, you’ll have to excuse my phone photo quality – I was rather jealous of some of the girls with their super duper swish cameras!)

Whilst the rest of us were thoroughly distracted with tasting the cheesecake and getting involved in slightly saucy Twitter conversations (check out@SeriousAboutBaking and you’ll see what I mean!) Eric began his second recipe demo of West Indian chocolate tart.

The tart was inspired by Eric’s visits to West India, with the authentic aroma of melting chocolate and warm spices filling the Cake Boy kitchen. I think this picture epitomises the luxuriousness of the tart:Top tip alert: Store your cling film in the fridge to stop it annoyingly sticking together when tearing it (life changing)!

Now it was our turn to don our Serious About Baking aprons and get icing our own little red velvet cakes. Pairing up with the lovely In Her 30s, this was what we had to recreate (left), next to my own less impressive version. I’ll blame the champagne for that.

Look at us all, seriously serious about icing.

The night finished with some group photos, goodie bags including a beautifully shiny new Kitchen Aid hand whisk, and book signing by Eric. I can’t thank the lovely ladies at Currys, Eric Lanlard, my fellow bakers and of course Erica and Laura from Laughter Is Catching enough for the fun-filled evening! You can check out more about the evening and Eric’s top tips on the Curry’s blog.

thanks so much to little lulu for heading along in this old lady's place. lucky for me, she even lugged one of her special red velvet cakes all the way home and then into work the next day for to sample, and so i didn't completely miss out... what a love! and damnnnn, it was good.

thanks very much to lucy for her recap of what sounds like a wonderful night!

so tell me, which is your fave cake? mine: red velvet.